The continent’s only IP registry is holding long delayed elections. But behind the ballots lies a deeper question: can Africa reclaim its Internet governance from the brink?
For most people, IP addresses are invisible. Few know how these blocks of digital real estate determine who gets to connect and who stays offline. But for those of us watching Africa’s digital future unfold, these technical details have become the fault lines of a crisis that goes far beyond code.
This week, the African Network Information Centre, known as AfriNIC, the continent’s only institution mandated to allocate Internet addresses, is finally holding elections to appoint a new board. On paper, it is a routine vote. In reality, it may be AfriNIC’s last chance to reassert its role as a steward of Africa’s digital sovereignty.
Since 2021, AfriNIC has been locked in a legal quagmire following a dispute with Cloud Innovation Ltd, a Seychelles registered company accused of misappropriating millions of IP addresses originally intended for African networks. What began as a technical disagreement spiralled into a saga of lawsuits, court injunctions, frozen bank accounts and ultimately, the collapse of governance within the registry itself.
For three years, AfriNIC has operated without a functioning board. Its members, which include telecom operators, governments and civil society groups, have had no real say in its direction. The registry’s internal systems stalled. Policy development ground to a halt. The very idea of community based Internet governance, so carefully nurtured over the last two decades, began to unravel.
But now, a new coalition is stepping in.
The fight to reclaim a broken institution
The list of candidates put forward for this week’s election has not emerged by accident. It is the product of months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy led by Smart Africa, a pan African alliance of governments working to accelerate the continent’s digital transformation.
Under the leadership of Ivorian technocrat Lacina Koné, Smart Africa convened a wide coalition from governments and technical pioneers to grassroots Internet communities to identify candidates who could rebuild AfriNIC from the inside. The result is a rare moment of unity, a proposed board slate of eight individuals from across the continent, bringing decades of experience in cybersecurity, infrastructure, regulation and community governance.
Among them is Rodrigue Guiguemde, a soft spoken but sharp minded engineer from Burkina Faso who previously served as vice chair of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee. Today, he is a senior advisor to Smart Africa and one of the few West African candidates with both continental legitimacy and international recognition.
The list also includes Abdelaziz Hilali, from Morocco, a long standing advocate of multilingual Internet and former chair of AFRALO within ICANN, Emmanuel Adewale Adedokun of Nigeria, a former AfriNIC board member known for his active defence of the public interest within the policy development process, and Kaleem Ahmed Usmani from Mauritius, an experienced cyber strategist and head of the island nation’s national CERT.
They are joined by Laurent Ntumba, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who has worked extensively on local Internet exchange points and community networks, and Carla Sanderson, a respected voice from the data centre and interconnection ecosystem in Southern Africa.
Completing the slate are two Kenyans: Fiona Asonga, CEO of TESPOK and a known advocate of multistakeholder Internet governance, and Ben Roberts, former Chief Technical Officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, widely considered one of the architects of Africa’s backbone infrastructure.
Together, they form the most balanced and regionally inclusive slate AfriNIC has seen in recent years. Their profiles are not only credible but complementary, mixing technical fluency, institutional memory and diplomatic experience.
The deeper stakes: power, accountability and who gets to decide
AfriNIC’s crisis is not isolated. Around the world, questions are being asked about who controls Internet infrastructure, who benefits from digital expansion, and who is left behind. In Africa, where nearly half the population remains offline, the answers are especially urgent.
IP addresses are finite, and their distribution is not neutral. When companies hoard these resources or divert them from local networks, entire regions are effectively excluded from the digital economy. When an institution like AfriNIC is weakened, the door opens to brokers, speculators and extractive models of connectivity. The result? African ISPs buy back African addresses at inflated prices. Governments lose oversight. Civil society is sidelined. And the dream of a democratic, open and inclusive Internet fades.
This week’s election is an attempt to break that cycle. But it is also a referendum on whether Africa can design and defend its own Internet governance on its own terms.
There are still risks. The vote was briefly suspended by Mauritius’ Supreme Court following procedural concerns. ICANN, the global coordinator of IP address systems, has expressed unease over transparency and fairness. And tensions remain high between factions of the community.
Yet if the election holds, and the Smart Africa-backed team prevails, it could signal a turning point. AfriNIC could begin to recover its operational capacity, reform its bylaws, re-engage its membership and perhaps most importantly, rebuild trust.
A moment of reckoning
Africa is often portrayed as a battleground for foreign digital powers. From submarine cables to data centers, from AI partnerships to cybersecurity deals, the continent is being courted and claimed, sometimes without its full consent. But the AfriNIC case reminds us that some of the most decisive battles are not about investments or innovation. They are about governance, process and institutional integrity.
If Africa cannot secure control over its own IP registry, what does that say about its readiness to manage more complex digital systems? If courts can paralyse a community-based institution for years without regional intervention, what protection exists for the next layer of digital infrastructure?
For AfriNIC, this week is not about who wins an internal election. It is about survival. For Africa, it is a test of whether sovereignty in the digital age means more than speeches and summits. It is about having the institutions, the leadership and the resolve to defend the public Internet, not just as users, but as custodians.
This is not just a technical story. It is a political one. And the outcome will shape how and by whom Africa’s Internet is governed for years to come.
